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EVENTIDE

William Monk wrote EVENTIDE. According to Mrs. Monk it was, "…written at the time of great sorrow—when together we watched, as we did daily, the glories of the setting sun. As the last golden ray faded, he took some paper and penciled that tune which has gone all over the earth." However, another account claims that Monk, when told that Henry Lyte's "Abide With Me, Fast Falls the Eventide" needed a tune for inclusion into the hymnal, Hymns Ancient and Modern, sat down and wrote one in ten minutes, in spite of a piano lesson going on in the room. These two accounts are not incompatible; potentially, after the meeting at his house with the committee for the compilers of Hymns, Ancient and Modern, he and his wife stepped outside for an evening walk and he composed it at that time.